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GEORGE CLINTON 

SOME OF HIS 

COLONIAL, REVOLUTIONARY AND 
POST -REVOLUTIONARY SERVICES 




An Address by 

COLONEL RALPH EARL PRIME 

delivered before 

THE NEW YORK SOCIETY 

OK THK 

ORDER OF THE FOUNDERS AND 
PATRIOTS OF AMERICA 

December 15, 1902 



GEORGE CLINTON 

SOME OF HIS 

COLONIAL, REVOLUTIONARY AND 
POST-REVOLUTIONARY SERVICES 



An Address by 

COLONEL RALPH EARL PRIME 

delivered before 

THE NEW YORK SOCIETY 

OF THE 

ORDER OF THE FOUNDERS AND 
PATRIOTS OF AMERICA 

December 15, ig02 



,6 



C(.Fj 



THE NEW YORK SOCIETY 

OF THE 

Order of the Founders and Patriots of America 



OFFICERS 

FOR THE YEAR ENDING APRIL I9, 1903 

Governffr 
EDWARD PAYSON CONE 

Deputy- Governor 
EDWARD HAGAMAN HALL 

Chaplain 
Rev. THEOPHILUS PARSONS SAWIN, D.D. 

Secretary 
ROBERT BUCKLAND CONE 

Treasurer 
HENRY DUHRING MILLER 

State Attorney 
WALTER SETH LOGAN 

Registrar 
WILLIAM ALLEN MARBLE 

Geneaolgist 
GEORGE HARLAN LEWIS 

Historian 
JOHN ELDERKIN 
Councillors 
JAMES LE BARON WILLARD 

Gen. FERDINAND PINNEY EARLE * 
CoL. EDWARD EARL BRITTON 

Hon. ROBERT BARNWELL ROOSEVELT 
HENRY LINCOLN MORRIS 

CoL. HENRY WOODWARD SACKETT 
TRUEMAN GARDNER AVERY 

Hon. JAMES JEROME BELDEN 

THEODORE FITCH 
* Deceased 



Note 

The following address was delivered by invita- 
tion, by the Governor General of the Order of the 
Founders and Patriots of America, Col. Ralph Earl 
Prime, before the New York Society of the Order, at 
a meeting held in the Hotel Manhattan, New York 
City, Monday evening, December 15, 1902. It was 
regarded as a valuable contribution to the biographi- 
cal and political history of the State of New York ; 
and is published by the New York Society of the 
Order of the Founders and Patriots of America in 
accordance with the vote of its Council, passed on 
Friday, December 19th, 1902. 



'^^tieadtast fov CH-crd nnd ^omxtv^^^ 



GEORGE CLINTON 

SOME OF HIS 

COLONIAL, REVOLUTIONARY AND 
POST-REVOLUTIONARY SERVICES 

BY 
COL. RALPH EARL PRIME 



IN presenting any part of the life or doings of any great man, it 
is difficult, nay impossible, to avoid presenting also other men 
and other things. What a man thinks and does, what his opinions 
and impulses are, what his relation to coincident events and affairs, 
his heredity, his environment, the effect upon him of the opinions 
and the personality of other men, the influence of all these varied 
things that happen, and of which he is a part, all these things 
are so interwoven with the man himself, that in order to get a 
just appreciation of him, it is necessary to consider them as well. 
This is peculiarly true in the story of George Clinton, as we shall 
see. The people among whom he lived, the locality where he 
lived, the great Hudson River Valley so intimately connected 
with him in his career, the events and the sufferings of the people, 
of whom he was a part, during the period that preceded the 
Revolution, the events of that Revolution itself, all these neces- 
sarily have much to do with the life of George Clinton. 

It hence will be impossible to the present task, to omit a large 
consideration of all of these, in attempting to set out something 
of the place which George Clinton occupied in history, and in 
order to enable us to judge of his character and of what he did. 
Therefore, although much will be said about the events of the 
Revolutionary War and of other men, yet are we in fact dealing 
with George Clinton. 

Many of the events that happened then, though inconspicuous 
when compared with others, were in fact momentous to us. The 



6 George Clinton 

men who acted their part then, have then- place in history, though 
we do not often dwell upon their story. Among them were many 
who, out of real native worth, wrought great things, and they 
have come to be historic and to be inseparable from the story of 
our country and the State. Some of them were specially fitted 
by nature and by heredity, for their work, and were called of 
God to it, and of none can this be more truly said than of 
George Clinton. 

This country of ours gives equal opportunity to all, and God 
forbid the time when the worship of wealth shall so take posses- 
sion of it that it shall make wealth the symbol of personal worth. 
Notwithstanding any of our fears, I believe it will never come. 
But although we endorse the abstract sentiment of our fathers 
that all men are born free and equal, yet there is an heredity of 
fitness, which cannot be counted out, and men become trained in 
long lines of blood and development for the work God has for 
them to do. 

George Clinton came of a line of soldiers and true men. His 
great-grandfather, William Clinton,^ was a soldier in the royalist 
army and he fought for Charles I., in those days that produced 
the Cavaliers and the Roundheads. Irving gives his name as 
Gen. Charles Clinton. ^ The King fell and the great Protector 
came to be the fountain-head of English liberty, at least of that 
period, and of the freedom which we enjoy with its development, 
which includes religious liberty. In the fall of that King, the 
blood v/as spilled that flowing in his veins meant oppression 
and repression, but spilled upon the ground it enriched England 
and fertilized it and gave a new start and an impulse to 
the growth of constitutional liberty. The triumph of the 
Roundheads drove out the followers of the King, and William 
Clinton found refuge in France for a time, but later he went 
to Scotland. 3 There he married. We know nothing of his 
religious tendencies, prejudices or opinions before Charles I. 
fell, but presumptively from his official rank in the army of the 
King they were toward the establishment. I have before this 
wondered if by breathing the Scotch Presbyterian air, or perhaps 
by the influence of a good Scotch wife, there was planted in him, 
and through him in the line of his descendants, some of the 

I. Clinton Papers; vol. i, p. 15. 2. Irving's Washington ; book 2, p. 70. 
3. Clinton Papers; vol. i, p. 15. 



Gkorge Clinton 7 

stern Calvinistic iron and sinew and spirit which grew and 
developed and came out to notice in the line of his descendants 
and in the person of his great-grandsons, James and George 
Clinton, both of whom, just before the Revolutionary war, were 
in the Church records of Orange County as District trustees of 
a Presbyterian Church. 1 The Tory historian, Jones, writing of 
George Clinton, speaks of him as a " rigid, true Presbyterian," a 
"hypocrite. "2 

But William Clinton did not escape in Scotland from perse- 
cution as a result of his former royalist connections and perhaps 
his yet treasured loyalty to the memory of the fallen King. It 
may have been in a degree, a " fool's errand " that begat trouble 
for him. Even the best men sometimes will talk, and a soldier's 
life of adventure and danger is full of romance, and of story, 
and none more than a soldier likes to talk of his campaigns and 
dangers. He was at all events compelled to seek safety and fled 
with his wife to Ireland and there soon after died, leaving an 
only son, James, then only two years old. James married and 
his son Charles (named perhaps for the King or Prince Charlie) 
was born to him in County Longford, Ireland, in 1690.^ 

The stories of the strange new things in this then new world 
across the seas, and the opportunity for adventure, filled the 
mind and excited imagination and attention in the old world. 
Perhaps those stories offered gratification of the spirit of adven- 
ture in Charles Clinton, then grown to be nearly forty years of 
age, and created in him desire, and nerved him, in 1729 to organ- 
ize an expedition of 70 souls and with them to cross the great 
stormy sea. They sailed in the ship " George and Annie " for 
America.* When we think of the ships of this day, and the ships 
of those days, what a ship the " George and Annie " must have 
been ! Would we to-day, even the most adventurous of us, trust 
ourselves in such a craft to cross the now familiar waters ? 

It is said that their destination was Philadelphia. The voy- 
age was not itself without adventure. The strange actions of the 
ship's captain begat suspicion among the voyagers and we are 
told that the company sought to induce their leader, Charles 
Clinton, to assume command of the ship.'' We at once imagine 
he must have already shown among his qualities, fitness to com- 

I. Ruttenber's History of Newburgh; p. 299. 2. Jones History of N. Y.; 
vol. 2, p. 326. 3. Clinton Papers; vol. i, p. 15. 4. Idem. 5. Idem. 



8 George Clinton 

mand on sea as well as on land, to have induced such an offer of 
command. He declined the task however and then the evidently 
well to do party, by large gifts of money, induced the crafty 
captain to fulfil his engagement and to put them safely ashore in 
America, and the whole company bound for a new land were 
glad indeed to be landed on the shores of Massachusetts Bay,' 
where they tarried until 1731, and then took up a further tramp, 
and a new stage in their journey, and came to the grand river and 
beautiful valley of the Hudson, and made their home at Little 
Britain, then in Ulster County, N. Y. 

Charles Clinton, the leader of the colonists, was educated it 
seems to be a civil engineer. He became a lawyer. Later he 
was first Judge of his county. The instincts born in him and 
inherited from his grandfather, with the ever conscious necessity 
of protection from the savages of the forest, led him also to 
become a soldier, and they fortified and defended the farms, and 
later we find him the Lieutenant Colonel of the Militia Regi- 
ment of his county. His was no paper title only, for he served 
the colony with his regiment in the field and was actively 
engaged in campaigns, far from Little Britain, along the north 
borders and along the great lake and in the wilderness resisting 
the French and Indians, who came down from the then French 
Canada, to ravage the British colony of New York. 2 

Two sons had been born to him, James Clinton and George 
Clinton, both to write their names high on the historic roll of 
sons of New York ; James as a Major General in the war for 
independence and from whom sprang De Witt Clinton, a dis- 
tinguished son, a name not necessary to enlighten a New Yorker 
about, but the younger son, George, became not only distin- 
guished as a general officer and a soldier, but a most prominently 
great figure in the early history of the State and the nation and 
a leader of the people. These two sons, as mere boys, accom- 
panied their father and his regiment in the French and Indian 
wars, the eldest, James, as captain of one of the regimental com- 
panies, and George as a lieutenant, no doubt in his brother's 
company. 3 They thus early showed themselves as worthy sons 
and scions of a soldier family, and, as very young fellows, they 
distinguished themselves, also among their other adventures, 

I. Clinton Papers ; vol. i, p. 15. 2. Irving's Washington ; book 2, p. 71. 
3. Idem; p. 71. 



George Clinton 9 

by capturing an armed French vessel on Lake Champlain.i 
Charles Clinton was a patriot and on his death bed in 1773, 
being 88 years of age, charged his sons to stand by the liberties 
of their country. ^ They were born to it and needed not the 
admonition. 

But it is with the story of George Clinton that we have to do 
to-day. 

George Clinton was born at Little Britain, Ulster, now 
Orange County, July 26, 1739.^ Adventure was a large part of 
his story. In 1755, when only 16 years of age, he was for a time 
a sailor boy and sailed from New York on a privateer,* but 
returning home when scarce 20 years old, as lieutenant he 
accompanied his father and brother in the same regiment, to the 
Canadian frontier and Lake Champlain in the French and Indian 
wars, in the Wilderness, and along Ontario and against Fort 
Frontenac. ^ 

The peace between Great Britain and France in 1763, brought 
the three Clintons home to peaceful pursuits. George, born to 
conflict of one kind or another, turned about for occupation 
most to his taste, and chose the calling of his father. He became 
a lawyer, and was admitted to the bar in 1764 by Governor Cad- 
walader Colden,^ lawyers in those days being licensed by the 
Governor of the Colony. Strange that when later on he became 
General Clinton and Governor Clinton he sent the grandson of 
the same Cadwalader Colden to Kingston Jail as a spy.'' 

Those days did not offer continuous occupation to the coun- 
try lawyer, and it seems not to have met all the demands of 
Clinton's nature, and so he added politics to the things that in- 
terested him, and thus early in his life came before the people in 
that line. He became Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of 
his county, and engaged in legal strifes generally, and not of 
his cnvn, only. That was a greater place in those days than in 
these, although there was then less money in it. His father had 
risen from a legal practitioner, whatever it then was, to the 
bench, and so also the son, for he soon became Surrogate and 
Probate Judge of the County,^ and, according to the practice 
then, and for long years later, and perhaps in some places until 

I. Clinton Papers ; vol. i, p. 17. 2. Irving's Washington ; book 2, p. 71. 
3. Clinton Papers, vol. i,, p. 17. 4. Idem; p. 17. 5. Idem; p. 17. 6. Idem; 
p. 18. 7. Idem; p. 788. 8. Idem; p. 18. 



ro George Clinton 

these days, the general adviser of widows and of the representa- 
tives of estates of deceased persons. In 1768 he was chosen a 
member of the General Assembly of the Colony of New York, 
and sat in that body for seven successive years. ^ 

The grievances of the colonies and their complaints, against 
the then existing kind of British rule, and of taxation without 
representation had reached abroad and was loudly heard in the 
mother country. I wonder if such rule was not on the whole 
for the benefit of the future of our country, for what would 
have happened we do not know, if the colonies had then been 
colonies of that "veiled republic " of to-day. But even then the 
Colonists had their friends in England. Pitt, the great Com- 
moner, espoused their cause. Col. Isaac Barre, in old Westmin- 
ster Hall, in the sitting of Parliament, in a public speech called 
the colonists " Sons of Liberty." ^ As the opprobrious epithet 
*' Beggars of the Sea " was adopted by the victorious Dutch 
sailors who swept the sea and nailed the broom to the masthead 
and used it for a figurehead on their ships, and made the epithet 
a title of honor, our ancestors took up those words " Sons of 
Liberty " and formed an organization, necessarily secret, but 
which had its members in many American cities and towns, and 
there are some of us who to-day are most happy to include in 
our genealogical story a descent from one of the later acknowl- 
edged *' Sons of Liberty." 

Just to enumerate a few only of the grievances of the colo- 
nies against British rule : Town meetings were forbidden ; juries 

1. N. Y. Civil List, Ed. of 1888, pp. 311, 312. 

2. The words of the speech of Col. Barre in that connection were: " They 
planted by your care ! No ; your oppressions planted them in America. They 
fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated, unhospitable country, where 
they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is 
liable ; and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle, and 
I will take upon me to say, the most formidable of any people upon the face of 
God's earth ; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met 
all hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own 
country, from the hands of those who should have been their friends. 

" They nourished up by your indulgence ? They grew by your neglect of 
them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in 
sending persons to rule them in one department and another, who were 
perhaps the deputies of deputies to some member of this house, sent to spy 
out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions and to prey upon them ; men 
whose behavior on many occasions had caused the blood of those Sons of 
Liberty to recoil within them ; men promoted to the highest seats of justice, 
some who, to my knowledge were glad, by going to a foreign country, to 
escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own." 



George Clinton ii 

were drawn to consist only of those who favored the rule of the 
King and had set themselves against the cause of the colonies ; 
persons accused of crime were sent to Nova Scotia and even to 
England for trial ; the stamp act had been enacted and its time 
of taking effect approached ; the Quebec act was passed, adding 
all the land west of the Alleghanys to the Canadas ; the billet- 
ing act which quartered troops upon the people, a thing utterly 
unheard of in these days. As we, in these days, look back to 
those days, we wonder at the accumulating list of wrongs and 
the increasing oppression suffered by our fathers, and at their 
long-endured oppression, their patience, and yet their loyalty to 
legal rule. 

A Congress, composed of representatives of nine of the col- 
onies, met in New York October 7, 1765, and strongly protested 
against the Stamp act and other acts in repression of trade and 
commerce, and claimed the right of petition, of trial by jury, of 
taxation only by representatives of those taxed. 

The meeting and the action of that Congress demonstrated 
the possibility of united action by all the separate colonies. 

The decade that followed did not serve to ameliorate the condi- 
tions nor to reconcile the people, for more and other oppressions 
came. The tea tax followed. The attempt to quarter troops 
upon the people and their resistance brought on the Boston mas- 
sacre. The quartering of troops upon the people was no imag- 
inary burden, but so real a wrong and grievance and outrage, 
that it later occupied a prominent place in the long list of 
wrongs and grievances recited in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. It touched most sharply sensibilities and personal rights. 
It invaded the home life, and its sanctity. It came as close as 
could be to all who suffered from it. It was a continual threat 
to those whose houses had not yet been invaded, that their turn 
might come next. It was a continual menace and was most 
heartily resented. 

The Boston tea party of December, 1773, belongs to that 
period. In November, 1773, in the port of New York, another 
tea party was held and three tea ships were sent back to Eng- 
land, and of the cargo of tea in another, eighteen chests were 
found on board and were thrown into the bay. A merchant ship 
commanded by Captain Chambers arrived, and the Sons of Lib- 
erty, disguised as Indians, boarded her and the tea was thrown 



12 George Clinton 

overboard by them.^ In November, 1773, New York merchants, 
even earlier than in Boston, refused to allow the landing of tea 
either with or without duty paid.^ 

Another Continental Congress, historically called the first but 
really the second Continental Congress, met September 5, 1774, 
in Philadelphia. Twelve of the thirteen colonies were repre- 
sented. Not yet was independence even thought of. It adopted 
the celebrated " Articles of Association." It approved the resist- 
ance of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay to the enforce- 
ment of the obnoxious acts and counseled in cases of attempted 
enforcement that all America ought to support opposition 
thereto. It also summoned another Continental Congress to 
meet in Philadelphia, May loth, 1775. 

In the colony of New York especially, the Association pledge, 
a document for individual signatures pledging resistance to 
English oppression, was most widely circulated and signed.' 
Signature was pressed upon all. Everyone must sign or decline 
to sign. The lines were drawn between those who sustained the 
crown and the patriots who maintained the rights of the colo- 
nies and resented and resisted their wrongs. It was not designed 
as an act of rebellion, but as a bond and pledge of union in 
opposition to oppression. It served to distinguish who was 
who ; to call out the brave who were courageous enough to 

1. Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution, vol. 2, p. 586. The destruction 
of tea was by men disguised by Indians and called " Mohawks." There may 
have been an understanding at both Boston and New York, for in each tea 
party the actors were disguised as Indians. 

2. Bancroft, U. S., vol. 4, p. 172. Irving' s Washington, Book I, p. 245. 

3. Calendar of Revolutionary manuscripts on file in office of Secretary of 
State, Vol. IV., pp.5 to 99. The form of the Association pledge was as fol- 
lows; " Persuaded that the salvation of the rights and liberties of America 
depend under God, on the firm union of its inhabitants in a vigorous prosecu- 
tion of the measures necessary for its safety ; and convinced of the necessity of 
preventing anarchy and confusion which attend the dissolution of the powers of 

government, we, the freemen, freeholders and inhabitants of , being 

greatly alarmed at the avowed design of the Ministry to raise a revenue in 
America, and shocked by the bloody scene now acting in Massachusetts Bay, 
do, in the most solemn manner, resolve Never to Become Slaves ; and do asso- 
ciate, under all the ties of religion, honor and love to our country, to adopt and 
endeavor to carry into execution whatever measures may be recommended by 
the Continental Congress or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention, for 
the purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposing the execution of the 
several arbitrary acts of the British Parliament, until a reconcilation between 
Great Britain and America on Constitutional principles (which we most ardently 
desire) can be obtained ; and that we will in all things follow the advice of the 
General Committee respecting the purposes aforesaid, the preservation of peace 
and good order, and the safety of individuals and property." 



George Clinton 13 

stand by the cause of the colonies ; and to black list those who 
dared not, and place them with those who clung to the aristo- 
cratic relations with the rich and the official classes. 

The names of James Clinton and George Clinton are found 
of course among those who signed the Association pledge. 

Through all this period of ferment George Clinton had lived 
and grown as the people grew, strong and heroic, and loving the 
liberty which was sought more and more. He was forward in 
all that concerned those who resented the wrongs heaped upon 
the colonies. He emerged from his local sphere of Ulster 
County in 1768, when he was elected representative from his 
county to the Thirtieth General Assembly of the Colony of 
New York.^ That Assembly was elected for five years, and com- 
menced its session October 27, 1768, but by its action in Decem- 
ber of that year, so offended the Governor of the Colony, that on 
the 2d day of January, 1769, it was dissolved by him.^ 

Early in 1769 the Thirty first General Assembly of this Col- 
ony was elected under the cry of " No Lawyers and no Presby- 
terians." The lawyers were devoted to the vital principles of 
civil liberty and the Presbyterians were engaged in efforts to se- 
cure religious equality before the law, which was denied by the 
Government.^ 

The General Assembly met in April, 1769. George Clinton 
had been again chosen a representative of his county,* and took 
his seat in the body. It was a stormy body. It had a strong 
Tory party in it, which was all subservient to the prerogatives 
of the King, and to the influences of the aristocratic element in 
the colony. The patriots were divided into two factions, one 
for radical resistance, and the other for resistance, too, but for a 
more conservative and quiet treatment of the matter.^ 

It is not strange that such a man as Creorge Clinton was, 
while a member of that General Assembly of the colony, a rep- 
resentative of the people, felt their grievances keenly, and his 
feeling was intensified by such an environment, the Tory element 
so strong, and the party of the people divided in counsel and in 
action. He threw himself with might and main in favor of the 
cause of the people against such rule as Great Britain gave them. 
While sitting in that Colonial Legislative Assembly, and not by 

I. N. Y. Civil List, Ed. of 1888, pp. 311, 312. 2. Idem, p. 109. 3. Idem, 
p. 109. 4. Idem, p. 312. 5. Idem, p. 109. 



14 George Clinton 

any means twenty-seven years of age, he became at once a promi- 
nent figure, and among all who surrounded him he became the 
leader of the party protesting and petitioning for redress, and 
resenting the grievances of the people and the encroachments on 
the liberties of the Colonists. The Assembly was attacked as 
having betrayed the cause of the people. Alexander McDougal, 
a patriot of the City of New York, afterward a Major-General in 
the Continental Army, issued a circular charging the Assembly 
with disloyalty to the people and with abandonment and be- 
trayal of their cause. ^ He was arrested, and for months was 
imprisoned and then brought before the Assembly for trial, and 
it was George Clinton who, with ardor and zeal, defended Mc- 
Dougal before that body. ^ 

It can well and most truly be said that George Clinton was no 
demagogue, and he was very near to the people. 

The General Assembly refused to carry out the recommenda- 
tion of the previous Continental Congress, and refused to use or 
circulate or enforce the Articles of Association. ^ The Conti- 
nental Congress of 1774 had appointed another Continental Con- 
gress to sit in May, 1775, and the General Assembly of New 
York refused to appoint deputies to that Congress.* 

A committee appointed by the Conservative Merchants of 
New York, and known as the Committee of Sixty, and also 
known as the Executive Committee, issued a call for a Provin- 
cial Convention to meet in New York City in March, 1775, to 
elect deputies to represent the Colony of New York in the Con- 
tinental Congress. s George Clinton was elected a member of 
that Convention. It sat in New York April 20, 1775. 

What a month was that month of April, 1775 ! The day be- 
fore the Convention sat, April 19, 1775, was made eternally a 
part of the history of our country by the conflicts at Lexington 
and at Concord Bridge, where patriot blood flowed and bap- 
tized a patriot people, for a great struggle, and sealed the cer- 
tainty of American independence. The General Assembly of the 
Colony of New York had held its last meeting April 3, adjourn- 
ing to May 3, but it was never to meet again. The same Com- 
mittee of Sixty, which called the Convention to elect deputies to 

I. McDougal's circular, signed "A Son of Liberty," in full in Clinton 
papers, Vol. I., p. no. 2. N. Y. Civil List, Ed. of 1888, p. no. 3. Idem, p. 119. 
4. Calendar of Rev. MS,, Vol. L, p, 3. 5. Idem, p. 3. 



George Clinton 15 

the Continental Congress, added to the events of that month of 
April by issuing a call inviting the counties to elect delegates to 
a Provincial Congress,^ and George Clinton w^as chosen one of 
those delegates. 2 That body met May 22, and then became in 
fact the successor of the General Assembly of the Colony, for 
the powers of the Assembly were in fact superseded and assumed 
by that Provincial Congress in May, 1775, and that General As- 
sembly never met again, although it had a life on paper, by rea- 
son only of being from time to time, nine times prorogued,^ 
until May, 1776, after which no pretense even on paper recorded 
its continuing life, and it was never afterward heard of. The 
very name of Colony had become distasteful to the patriot peo- 
ple, and was dropped, and the Colony of New York disappeared 
from history, and from April, 1775, came to be known as the 
Province of New York. 

What an atmosphere had been made by these events for the 
Second Continental Congress, and how events hurried on one 
after another. 

The Convention met April 20, 1775, the next day after Lex- 
ington. Young man as he was, George Clinton's place as a 
patriot leader had already been fixed and made evident, and the 
Convention named him one of the representatives of the Province 
of New York to the Continental Congress. 

The Continental Congress met May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, 
and it was on that very day that Ticonderoga fell into the hands 
of the patriots, led by Ethan Allen. George Clinton took his 
seat May 15, 1775, having for associates as representatives from 
New York such men as John Jay, Philip Livingston, William 
Floyd, Francis Lewis and Lewis Morris. 

Clinton having been also elected in May a member of the 
Provincial Congress, it is very difficult to see how he could 
discharge the duties of his position in the two bodies, the Pro- 
vincial Congress and the Continental Congress meeting at the 
same time, at places then very distant from each other, but we 
cannot assume that he slighted either patriotic duty. 

War was inevitable, though there was no formal declaration 
of war, and preparations for conflict went on. On June 15, 1775, 
George Washington, who was a member from Virginia of the 
Continental Congress, was appointed by that body General and 

I, N. Y. Civil List, Ed. of 1888, p. 113. 2. Idem. 3. Idem, p. 312. 



i6 George Clinton 

Commander-in-Chief, and measures were taken to raise an army. 
On June 17, two days later, Bunker Hill had been fought, and 
Warren had given up his life for his country. 

We can scarce understand the hour and the circumstances in 
which those men lived. As we read the story of those early 
conflicts, how long drawn upon was the patience of those pa- 
triotic men ! Stung and rasped and goaded by the continued 
oppressive rule, and the accumulating oppressions suffered by 
the people, the repeated collisions with the King's army, and the 
blood of their fallen fellows that cried out from the ground for 
vindication, they yet sought to make terms with the King, and 
in proclaiming a general fast throughout the United Colonies, 
directed that the people should recognize the King as their law- 
ful sovereign, and look to God for restoration of their rights and 
for reconciliation with the parent State. 

Final action toward independence was not taken in any form 
until June 7, 1776, when Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, 
moved in Continental Congress a resolution that " these United 
Colonies are and of right should be fi'eeand independent States." 
This resolution was debated two days, and then further consid- 
eration postponed until July 2, in order that delegates might 
consult their constituents about it, and, meanwhile, it was re- 
ferred to a committee of five, of which Jefferson was chairman. 
That resolution contained the germ of the immortal Declaration 
of Independence, and on the 2d day of July, 1776, the Congress 
adopted the resolution amplified in these words, " Resolved that 
these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and in- 
dependent States, and that they are absolved from all allegiance 
to the British crown, and that political connection between them 
and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dis- 
solved." This, we see, was the real Declaration of Independence. 
Washington was already in the field. New York had been in- 
vaded, and at the summons of Washington Clinton at once hur- 
riedly left Philadelphia and the deliberations of the Congress 
and went to the defense of his State, not, however, until he had 
voted, July 2, 1776, for the first resolution, the real Declaration 
of Independence, but before the document we know as the Dec- 
laration of Independence had been written out by Jefferson and 
reported ready for individual signature by the members of that 



George Clinton 17 

Congress. We cannot but regret that his name is not written at 
the foot of that document, amidst that galaxy of immortal names, 
and adding another to the four representatives of New York who 
signed the paper, few, indeed, for our great Empire State; but 
his obedience to the call of the great commander, and to arms 
and to a higher duty, will ever explain to those who read or hear 
the reason why, and will place his name in honor v/ith them. 

The actual separation of the several colonies, each from the 
other, becomes most apparent when we consider the fact, that 
although the Continental Congress raised its moneys for the war 
and had troops which were, in fact, raised by authority of the 
Continental Congress, and officers were appointed by it, yet in 
the several colonies the legislative bodies to a large extent di- 
rected military matters within their bounds, and there were 
troops called Regiments of the Line of each Colony, as the New 
York line, the Massachusetts line, etc, and there were Commit- 
tees of Safety in the colonies which also exercised authority of a 
very actual nature. Still, with all this divided authority, the 
practical unity of the people in the cause is exemplified in the 
other fact that there was so little substantial division and dissen- 
sion. There were remarkable personal enmities and jealousies. 
Place seekers abounded then as now, who would risk their coun- 
try's cause for their own gain. There were many who coveted 
the places and command of others. There were those who as- 
pired even to the place that Washington occupied, and bitter and 
libelous things were both written and said of him. But how su- 
preme was Washington above them all. We stand in admiration 
of his colossal figure, and his incomparable character, despite of 
all libels and enmities and ambitions of others. Secure in his 
place of command, and in the confidence and affection of his 
countrymen, which he was never by any mistake or misfortune 
to lose. How truly after his death, more than twenty years 
later, was it said of him by the great John Marshall in the Halls 
of Congress, " First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts 
of his fellow-citizens. "1 

I. Speech of John Marshall in the House of Representatives, and resolu 
tion moved by him adopted by the House December iq, lyqq 

" Mr. Speaker 

The melancholy event which was yesterday announced with doubt, has been 
rendered but too certain. Our Washington is no more ! The hero, the patriot. 



i8 George Clinton 

And how his death brouj^ht from the lips even of Jefferson^ 
the words, "Washington's fame will go on increasing until the 
brightest constellation in yonder heavens shall be called by his 

and the sage of America ; the man on whom in times of danger every eye was 
turned, and all hopes were placed, lives now only in his great actions, and in 
the hearts of an affectionate and afflicted people. 

If, sir, it had not been usual openly to testify respect for the memory of those 
whom Heaven has selected as its instruments for dispensing good to man, yet 
such has been the uncnmmon worth, and such the extraordinary incidents, 
which have marked the life of him whose loss we all deplore, that the whole 
American nation, impelled by the same feelings, would call with one voice for 
a public manifestation of that sorrow, which is so deep and so universal. 

More than any other individual, and as much to one individual as was 
possible, has he contributed to found this our wide-spreading empire, and to 
give to the western world independence and freedom. 

Having effected the great object for which he was placed at the head of our 
armies, we have seen him convert the sword into the ploughshare, and sink 
the soldier in the citizen. 

When the debility of our federal system had become manifest, and the bonds 
which connected this vast continent were dissolving, we have seen him the 
chief of those patroits who formed for us a constitution, which, by preserving 
the union, will, I trust, substantiate and perpetuate those blessings which our 
Revolution had promised to bestow. 

In obedience to the general voice of his country, calling him to preside over 
a great people, we have seen him once more quit the retirement he loved, and, 
in a season more stormy and tempestuous than war itself, with calm and wise 
determination pursue the true interests of the nation, and contribute, more 
than any other could contribute, to the establishment of that system of policy, 
which will, I trust, yet preserve our peace, our honor, and our independence. 

Having been twice unanimously chosen the chief magistrate of a free 
people, we have seen him at a time when his re-election with universal suffrage 
could not be doubted, afford to the world a rare instance of moderation, by 
withdrawing from his station to the peaceful walks of private life. 

However the public confidence may change, and the public affections 
fluctuate with respect to others, with respect to him they have, in war and in 
peace, in public and in private life, been as steady as his own firm mind, and 
as constant as his exalted virtues. 

Let us then, Mr. Speaker, pay the last tribute of respect and affection to 
our departed friend. Let the grand council of the nation display those senti- 
ments which the nation feels. For this purpose I hold in my hand some reso- 
lutions, which I take the liberty of offering to the House. 

Resolved, That the House will wait on the President, in condolence of this 
mournful event. 

Resolved, That the speaker's chair be shrouded with black, and that the 
members and officers of the House wear black during the session. 

Resolved, That a committee, in conjuction with one from the Senate, be 
appointed to consider on the most suitable manner of paying honor to the 
memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
fellow-citizens." 

Marshall stated afterward, in his Life of Washington, that these resolu- 
tions were drafted by Col. Henry Lee of Virginia, who could not be in his 
place to offer them. It is a remarkable fact that there are at least three differ- 
ent versions of the resolutions, one other of which is as follows : " Unani- 
mously Resolved, i. That this house will wait on the President of the United 
States, in condolence of this national calamity. 2. That the speaker's chair 
be shrouded in black, and that the members and officers of the house wear 



GtORGE Clinton 



19 



name."i No more lofty words were ever written than compose 
iheletter of the Senate of the United States to John Adams, 
then President of the United States, condoling with him upon 
the death of Washington. ^ 

As we sail upon our Hudson River which flows always so 
peacefully, or hurry along its waters on our way to and from 

mourning during the session. 3. That a joint committee of both houses be 
appointed to report measures suitable to the occasion and expressive of the 
profound sorrow with which Congress is penetrated on the loss of a 
citizen first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 



1. Daneslie's Life of Jefferson, p. 358. 

2. Letter to John Adams, President, adopted by the Senate of the United 
States, December 23, 1799: 

"Sir : 

The Senate of the United States respectfully take leave to express to you 
their deep regret for the loss their country sustains in the death of General 
George Washington. 

This event, so distressing to all our fellow-citizens, must be peculiarly 
heavy to you, who have long been associated with him in deeds of patriotism. 
Permit us, sir, to mingle our tears with yours. On this occasion it is manly 
to weep. To lose such a man at such a crisis, is no common calamity to the 
world. Our country mourns a father. The Almighty Disposer of human 
events has taken from us our greatest benefactor and ornament. It becomes 
us to submit with reverence to him "who maketh darkness his pavilion." 

"With patriotic pride we review the life of our Washington, and compare 
him with those of other countries who have been pre-eminent in fame. Ancient 
and modern times are diminished before him. Greatness and guilt have too 
often been allied ; but his fame is whiter than it is brilliant. The destroyers 
of nations stood abashed at the majesty of his virtues. It reproved the in- 
temperance of their ambition, and darkened the splendor of victory. The 
scene is closed, and we are no longer anxious lest misfortune should sully his 
glory ; he has traveled on to the end of his journey, and carried with him an 
increasing weight of honor ; he has deposited it safely, where misfortune can- 
not tarnish it, where malice cannot blast it. Favored of Heaven, he departed 
without exhibiting the weakness of humanity. Magnanimous in death, the 
darkness of the grave could not obscure his brightness. 

Such was the man whom we deplore. Thanks to God, his glory is con- 
summated. Washington yet lives on earth in his spotless example ; his spirit 
is in Heaven. Let his countrymen consecrate the memory of the heroic 
General, the patriotic statesman, and the virtuous sage. Let them teach their 
children never to forget that the fruits of his labors and his example are their 
inheritance." 

Note. — In this connection, though not related to the death of Washington, 
but to the person and story of the man, it is interesting to note here iwo fairly 
authenticated facts, little known, that when Rochambeau came with the French 
troops to our assistance and D'Estaing came with a fleet of war vessels, in order 
that there should not be an element of dissension, the King of France sent to 
Washington a temporary commission as Marshal in the French army, that he 
might outrank Rochambeau in command of the French troops, and also a com- 
mission as Admiral in the French navy, that he might outrank D'Estaing and 
command him in the movements of the French war vessels. '^ 

3. Our French Allies, 1778 to 1781, pages 373 to 378. Harper's Book of 
Facts, page 833, under date of May 11, 1780. Clinton papers, Vol. I., p. 100. 



20 George Clinton 

the marts of commerce and of trade and of a ceaseless industr)', 
those beautiful waters, fringed with the most bounteous gifts of 
nature, its shores now abounding with all that wealth and art can 
add, we are alto;:^ether unconscious of the sounds and the para- 
phernalia of war, those scenes once heard and knew, and of the 
men who wrought for us there, and the intimate and important 
relation that this river had to that great birth struggle of our 
country. Yes, we seldom think of the men who, born on, or 
near its shores, had great place in those days, a hundred and 
more years ago. 

The importance of the Hudson River as a means of access to 
New York City from the north and the danger involved in its 
possession by an enemy as cutting in two the colonies was well 
recognized before the war of the Revolution. The French had 
several times attempted this line of attack from her Canadian 
colony. Such an attack was planned by the French in 1689, and 
Frontenac in an attempt to accomplish it came down from the 
north, and penetrated as far as Schenectady which he burned, 
and scarce any parallel to that campaign for ferocity and blood 
and massacre is to be found in the stories of the most savage 
warfare. Later came Montcalm over the same ground and on 
the same errand. Clinton was not ignorant of what all that 
meant, for he too, as we have already seen, when only 19 years 
of age had fought on the northern borders of New York and 
had participated in successful resistance to the incursions of the 
French. And when the Revolutionary War broke out and re- 
sistance to the bitter end became the fixed purpose of the Ameri- 
can people, the strategists of the English army did not originate, 
but adopted, the long well-known scheme, of expeditions north 
from New York City by the valley of the Hudson, and south 
from the Canadian border and by the Lake Champlain and the 
Hudson River to New York. The destruction of the vessels in 
Lake Champlain, the attack on Forts Clinton and Montgomery, 
the attack upon the army of Washington at and the battle of 
White Plains, the treachery of Arnold and his plan to deliver 
West Point to the enemy and the battle of Saratoga with the 
surrender of Burgoyne were all parts of the general plan and 
persistent attempt to cany out such a project. 

No American officer of intelligence and of general informa- 



George Clinton 21 

tion as to the history of the past of the colonies, but knew of the 
importance of the Hudson River in the struggle for independence. 
Washington, of course, saw and appreciated all that the occupa- 
tion of the valley of the Hudson would mean to the fate of the 
colonies. No one to-day with that hindsight, so accurate to 
pick up the results of the might-have-been, fails to appreciate it 
at once. To separate New England from New York and the 
other colonies west and south, would mean to take our cause in 
detail and strike at will against our divided forces. Separated 
from each other and by so grand a waterway, which, once pos- 
sessed, could be held securely by small armed craft, and with the 
port of New York at the south and Albany at the north garri- 
soned with troops, communication would be severed, supplies 
cut off and re-inforcements prevented. 

Washington saw and took the situation in, and one of his 
letters on the subject is an example of terse and yet of all em- 
bracing statement. 

At the instance of the Continental Congress, toward the 
end of May, 1775, action was taken in the Provincial Congress, 
toward the fortification of the Highlands, and a few days 
later George Clinton, then called Colonel Clinton, who probably 
was then attending its session, and Mr. Tappan, two of its 
members, were sent to the Highlands to inspect both banks 
of the Hudson River and to report the most proper place for 
erecting one or more fortifications. Only 14 days later, that 
committee having visited the Hudson River valley and in- 
spected its possibillities of defense, reported recommending the 
building of Forts Constitution and Clinton and Montgomery, 
which forts the Provincial Congress then directed to be con- 
structed. Dissensions and rivalries and other sores, so often the 
bane of almost every war, however, hindered the work almost 
a year. 

We may rest assured that the time spent by Clinton in 
Philadelphia during sessions of the Continental Congress was 
not occupied only with the legislative and deliberative duties of 
that body, Washington needed to know of the matters con- 
cerning New York, and to be accurately informed of the military 
situation there, and its military resources and of the possibilities 
of the Hudson River. Many and long were the conferences be- 



22 George Clinton 

tween Washington and Clinton concerning these things, and the 
Highlands, and their defense, during the waiting days and days 
of preparation, and while they were fellow-members of the Con- 
tinental Congress. 1 No one was better qualified than Clinton 
to tell to Washington just what he wanted to know and to sup- 
ply to the great commander the information so necessary to 
possess and there was no one better qualified with whom to ad- 
vise in order to measure and to plan the necessary defenses for 
the whole line in the impending struggle. These conferences 
also enabled Washington to measure up the capacity of the 
young patriot for other responsibilities, for it seems beyond 
doubt that it was at that time that he acquired such confidence 
in the powers and capacities and character of Clinton, such a 
sense of the sincerity of his patriotism, such an admiration for 
his personality, that he was enabled later, as he did, to write so 
warmly and positively of him to others, and to commend him to 
others as one who could be relied upon and trusted for most 
responsible places ; and to commend his zeal and his work, and 
to entrust him with such important, military command. The 
friendship between the two, commenced at that time, afterwards 
continued to grow and develop. Washington became the close 
friend of Clinton, and during the years that followed the friend- 
ship never cooled, but became more and more close and inti- 
mate ; and that friendship, despite all differences of opinion 
survived the war and continued through the life of Washington. ^ 
It is impossible to trace fully all the steps of Clinton in all 
his work in those eventful days. No doubt so young and so 
active a man as he was, he strove to perform conscientiously his 
full duty to New York as a member of its Provincial Congress 
and also to discharge his other duties as a member of the Conti- 
nental Congress so long as he remained a member of that body, 
until active duties as a soldier called him away, and perhaps also 
to keep hold on a private business at home. It must have been 
a most difficult task in those times, before the era of railroads 
and the telegraph. No one could ever guess the events of a day 
to come, much less of a longer future. With a people divided in 

1. Irving Washington. Book 2, p. 70. 

2. In the last will and testament of Washington, Clinton is mentioned in 
language which indicates, that they were so close, that they made joint invest- 
ments, long after the termination of the war. 



George Clinton 23 

sentiment, between, on one side, those of the aristocratic Tory- 
party not to be trusted with any measure of confidence or 
good faith or even simple-hearted friendship ; and on the other 
side, self-sacrificing, patriots, devotedly determined on the acqui- 
sition of liberty in some form. Those who had little doubt of 
the ultimate end, must have been most anxious all the time. 

We cannot here recall all that was done by that Continental 
Congress nor all the events in which Clinton figured during its 
first year. He faithfully attended its earlier sessions. In Decem- 
ber, 1775, he had been appointed by the Provincial Congress of 
New York a Brigadier-General of the Militia of the Province. 
From his oft-expressed sense of his unfitness to' command large 
bodies of soldiers, it will not be possible to assume that he sought 
the place. It was the general sense of the people of New York, 
that he was a man of patriotism, of ability, of honesty, and 
faithful in all things entrusted to him. Perhaps a recollection 
of his prowess as a young soldier in the French and Indian wars, 
suggested and secured his appointment to military command, 
unsought by him and perhaps without his knowledge. How 
much it took him from his duties in the Continental Congress, 
we do not know. But we do know that apparently he was 
attentive and faithful in those duties until July, 1776, when he 
was called away to the defense of New York. 

The militia of those days were not as the militia of these 
days. The City of New York was a hot-bed of Tory sentiment 
and the local militia were not to be trusted. The country dis- 
tricts were true. From the agricultural country the ranks of 
the militia regiments were filled, with the toilers in the fields. 
But the harvests, too, must be cared for to feed the people, and 
the alternation of service in the two fields, must have rendered 
duty most difficult, and the hold upon the service of the patriot 
and his response to the call to arms, a difficult one. Yet we 
believe that the ear of the patriot farmer soldier was sharp to 
hear the call, when it came, whenever and wherever it should 
find him. 

When in December, 1775, George Clinton was appointed by 
the Provincial Congress a Brigadier-General of the Militia of 
the Province of New York, he was assigned to a district in which 
was the county of Orange and his own county of Ulster. It 



24 George Clinton 

was therefore to him that fell with his other duties a most per- 
plexing and difficult task. When we keep in mind that he was 
to keep in touch with the militia of his command, to be ready 
for any emergency, to regard and obey various calls to duty and 
the distance from each other of the places in which he was to 
discharge those duties, then his difficulties become apparent. 

In the midst of those duties in the Continental Congress, and 
as we have shown, after he had voted July 2, 1776, for the resolu- 
tion declaring the Independence, he with Washington forsook the 
place for the camp and field. If they had not so promptly gene to 
the soldier's post of duty, they might also a few days later have 
affixed their names to the immortal paper we call the Declara- 
tion of Independence. Washington commanded and Clinton 
obeyed, and the camp and field took the place of deliberative 
legislative work, and the eloquence of arms took the place of 
eloquence of words. 

From the moment of the appointment of George Clinton in 
December, 1775, as Brigadier General in the Militia of the Prov- 
ince, he justly conceived the conviction thas his place was with 
the troops, and his place of service the camp and the field, rather 
than in the conferences of the Provincial or the Continental 
Congress, and yet he lingered and discharged his duties in those 
conferences until his State was invaded and the command of 
Washington came to him to leave for active service. 

George Clinton was not filled with any foolish vanity about 
his own ability as a soldier. After the battle of White Plains, 
and in November, 1776, he wrote to the Committee of Safety 
that he was told that war consisted of strategem and deceptions, 
but he did not understand much of the refined art of war.^ 
Later, possessed with a sense of his own unfitness for so high a 
command of men, he desired to resign his command, but was 
met by the assurance of the Committee of Safety that his coun- 
try could not afford to dispense with his services in the field. ^ 
In March, 1777, he again proposed to resign his command, and 
wrote that his intention was not from any disgust of the service, 
but that from fatal experience he found that he was not able to 
render to his country the service which they had reason to expect 
of him, considering the command he had been entrusted with.^ 

I. Clinton Papers, vol i, p. 400. 2. Idem, p. 409. 3. Idem, p. 642 



George Clinton 25 

Elsewhere he writes, that he would gladly command a regiment 
or a company for the privilege of serving his country. ^ And 
again, that he would as lief command a company as a brigade, 
and asked leave to resign his high commission. 2 Writing to the 
convention he says : " I will most cheerfully turn into the ranks 
"and do the duty of a private, and from the knowledge I have 
" as an officer of the necessity of discipline and subordination, I 
'* trust at least I shall be an obedient soldier." ^ 

His faithfulness to this notion could not obscure his own sense 
of his lack of military knowledge and experience, or his own 
modest measure of his military ability. 

It is refreshing to find such sentiments somewhere, when we 
read of so much ambition, and jealousy, and envy of officers not 
content to serve except in high places. 

In March, 1777, he was appointed by the Continental Con- 
gress a Brigadier-General in the Continental Army, This 
appointment, it is said, was made at the earnest recommenda- 
tion of Washington. He then wrote to Washington, " My 
" precarious state of health and want of military knowledge 
■'would have rather induced me to have led a more retired life 
" than that of the army, had I been consulted on the occasion, but 
"as early in the present contest I laid it down as a maxim not to 
"refuse my best, though poor services, to my country in any 
" way they should think proper to employ me, I cannot refuse 
"the honor done me in the present appointment." His refer- 
ence to his state of health reminds us that he was in that 
eventful year, 1775, thrown upon a bed of serious sickness 
and for months lay seriously ill, and his friends feared the worst 
and were most profuse in their expressions of gladness at his re- 
covery.* 

None questioned Clinton's sincerity in what he said and 
wrote. He was one of the soldiers of the Revolutionary war 
who served from a sense of duty and not from military pride or 
love of personal glory. His whole service, civil and military, 
show modest worth and devoted patriotism. 

Almost at once upon his appointment as Brigadier-General 
in the Continental Army, Clinton was assigned to the command 
of the defenses of the Highlands and the Hudson River, and 

I. Clinton papers, Vol. I., p. . 2. Idem, p. . 3. Idem, Letter of 

Clinton, p. 654. 4. Idem, p. 214. 



26 George Clinton 

thereafter it was most difficult even when called to serve in the 
highest civil office, to draw him from his post, to take upon him- 
self any other duty, no matter how exalted. 

Having on previous occasions sought to lay down his com- 
mand of the militia, in May, 1777, he wrote to the President of 
the Provincial Convention, " For many reasons, as well as that 
"arising from my appointment in the Continental Army, lead me 
" to wish to have no further command of the militia. I therefore 
"beg leave to resign my commission as Brigadier-General of the 
" Counties of Ulster and Orange, and that you will be pleased to 
"accept this as my resignation of the command to me thereby 
"given."! This resignation, it seems, was treated as those of 
previous occasions, and the convention of representatives refused 
to relieve him, 2 and later we find him exercising powers as Brig- 
adier-General of Militia and calling them out for service. 

This paper cannot be more than a comparatively short sketch 
of so active and eventful a life as that of George Clinton, and we 
cannot follow in detail all that he did as a soldier. His service 
in the Highlands, at Forts Clinton and Montgomery, have been 
much written of, and so much written of, that we are glad to 
know that there were other places where he served. But his 
conspicuous personal bravery displayed in the defense of these 
forts no doubt has singled them out for the pen of the writer. 
They belong to the series which ended eleven days later in the 
surrender of Burgoyne. Surely those were glorious fights. 
Overwhelmed with the hordes of the enemy, and vastly outnum- 
bered, the defense was desperate and brave. His escape from 
death, and the escape of his brother James, seem like miracles. It 
was to be beaten at one point to fly to and fight at another, and 
though the forts were lost, like many other fights in the Revolu- 
tionary war, they were parts of a great and glorious campaign 
which closed with a triumph, and as defeats, developed a sense 
of ability to fight, which opened the eyes of the enemy, and 
taught those who lost to-day that other fields were before them 
to win and gave a consciousness of resource. The river counties 
of the Hudson, from Kingsbridge to Poughkeepsie, became most 
familiar ground to Clinton and his command. Fort Washing- 
ton and Kingsbridge, Yonkers and Eastchester, White Plains, 

I. Clinton Papers, Clinton letter, Vol. I., p. 808. 2. Idem, p. 836. 



George Clinton 27 

North Castle, along the Croton River and at Peekskill, at Ram- 
apo and Haverstraw, at the order of the Committee of Safety 
into New Jersey with his brigade, and at Hackensack ; on secret 
expeditions through Westchester County hunting the cowboys ; 
all these places witnessed his services as a soldier. On October 
28, 1776, he with his brigade was at the battle of White Plains. 
On the night before that battle he wrote to McKesson, the 
Chairman of the Committee of Safety, giving some of the events 
of the day, and at the end of the letter threw in a message to 
his wife, showing that amidst the excitement of camp and battle 
he knew he had a wife and a home. He also wrote, "Pray let 
" Mrs. Clinton know that I am well and that she need not be 
*' uneasy about me. It would be too much honor to die in so good 
"a cause." 

He was not over-content with idle watching in the High- 
lands, and in August, 1777, wrote to Washington that it 
would have been equally agreeable to have headed the militia 
and marched to the re-enforcement of the northern army as to 
have commanded where he was, at Fort Montgomery. Had he 
marched to reinforce that army he would have been in the 
surrender of Burgoyne. 

Clinton had become so important a factor and his work so 
wide known to the enemy that a price was put upon his head, 
and the British authorities in New York regarded him of im- 
portance enough to offer a reward of ;^5oo for his capture and 
delivery to the authorities in New York. 

In these recent days we have been celebrating the centennial 
of West Point, but we have not heard nor read of the mention of 
George Clinton's name in all that has been said or written. It 
should be added to the story that on the 20th day of December, 
1777, Clinton wrote to Washington suggesting the fitness of 
West Point as a stronghold and a defense of the Hudson River. 
This suggestion no doubt occasioned the first occupation of the 
place for public purposes. 

When the time came for the acknowledgment by Great Britain 
of the independence of the colonies, it fell to the lot of George 
Clinton to occupy a most prominent place. He was Governor 
of the State of New York, and he was also a General officer of 
the Continental army. The evacuation by the British troops of 



28 George Clinton 

the City of New York was to take place. The negotiations were 
conducted personally between Washington and Sir Guy Carle- 
ton. Clinton was in command of the troops along the Hudson, 
and as to its terms and all of the details of that evacuation, 
Washington consulted with Clinton. It is said that Clinton re- 
quested of Washington the command of the troops that should 
take possession of the city and that Washington accorded to 
him that honor. Gen. Knox, however, seems to have had 
command of the troops that took possession of Fort George. 
The day came and the British marched out and took boats to 
the transports in the harbor and our own service-weathered 
veterans marched in. The mounted men were in advance, first 
the dragoons, followed by the light infantry, the artillery, more 
light infantry, the Massachusetts troops, Washington and Clinton 
following on horseback and riding together, escorted by a squad- 
ron of Westchester Light Horse, commanded by Capt. Delevan. 
Then came the Lieut. Governor of New York and the Council. 
Then followed Gen. Knox and a body composed of war-worn 
officers of the army, then a body of citizens on horseback and 
last a long line of citizens on foot. What a scene that must 
have been and how it must have affected the patriot hearts of 
those who were true through all the years of British possession. 
The feelings of such can best be expressed by the words of a young 
woman who was then present and who wrote of what she saw in 
these words : " We have been accustomed to military display in 
" all the finery of garrison life. The troops that marched out 
" were equipped as for show, and with their scarlet uniforms 
" and burnished arms made a brilliant display. The troops 
*' that marched in were ill-clad and weather beaten, and made a 
" forlorn appearance ; but they were our troops. As I looked 
" on them and thought of all they had done, and suffered for us, 
" my heart and my eyes were full and I admired and gloried in 
" them the more, because they were weather-beaten and for- 
*' lorn."i 

That was a great day for the patriot army. That evening 
George Clinton, who was then as has just been said, Governor 
as well as General, acted as host and entertained Washington 
and the officers of the army at Fraunces' Tavern in Broad street 

I. Irving' Washington, Book 4, p. 69. 



George Clinton 29 

at a great dinner. Imagination alone must supply the story of 
what then took place, the loud rejoicing which must generally 
have prevailed, the solemn sense of what it all meant, to the 
people, to the country and to the future, which no doubt filled 
the thoughts of some at least of those who composed what could 
not be other than a hilarious company. 

The following Monday, Clinton gave another dinner in New 
York to Luzerne, the French Ambassador, and to Washington 
and his generals, and to 1,000 other gentlemen. It was royal in 
its conception and compass and befitting to the hour. On the 
following Thursday, Washington took leave of his staff and the 
officers of his army and of Clinton, his trusted friend, and took 
his way to Annapolis to surrender to the Continental Congress 
the powers he had exercised for seven years. The peaceful work 
of sending forward a new nation on its mission, of peace, of 
freedom, and progress, and leadership, had commenced, and those 
who were great in war were to turn their attention to the pur- 
suits of peace. Surely they had a noble example in that of 
Washington. 

We have done with the Revolutionary War as related to 
Clinton. But meanwhile other events of a civil nature had 
taken place to which he was most intimately related. 

The Declaration of Independance having been adopted, the 
Continental Congress advised the States, each for itself, to adopt 
some form of government. A long period elapsed before many 
changes were made in the form of government into which the 
States had drifted, and the history of the government under 
wiitten constitutions is most interesting. Strange that Rhode 
Island retained her old colonial charter until the year 1843. 
New Jersey was the first State to accomplish the task of framing 
a constitution. New York was next in order. The same con- 
vention of the representatives of the State of New York, which 
meeting at White Plains, received by post-rider the news of the 
signing of the Declaration of Independence on the loth day of 
July, 1776, and adopted or ratified it, undertook to comply with 
the recommendations of the Continental Congress and to form 
a system of government for the State and assumed the task of 
framing a written constitution. The w^ork of evolving that 
document fell to the hands and lot of John Jay, and what a task 



30 George Clinton 

it was. That convention migrated to many places during the 
events of the war. It was to meet in New York City, July 8, 
1776, and proceed with the work of framing a form of govern- 
ment. The fleet of Lord Howe had appeared near Sandy Hook 
and the meeting was held at White Plains. It also met at 
Harlem, at Fishkill and finally at Kingston. What was the form 
of government to be? The great idea of a government of the 
people, by the people, for ihe people, that we talk of to-day, was 
most certainly the goal of these men. There was no precedent 
to follow. No republic had existed for hundreds of years. 
There was no pattern of a written constitution to help those men 
in framing one for New York. The document prepared was re- 
ported March 12, 1777, and was considered for a whole month by 
the Convention, and was adopted April 20, 1777. The instru- 
ment took up in detail the wrongs suffered, and reciting them 
one after another used them as reasons for a new order of 
things, and enacted the provisions for government which in- 
sured against any more of it. The paper was nearer to the 
people than any of the revised constitutions of these days. The 
experience with a king seemed to dictate that even the chief 
Executive should not exercise many of the powers we are now 
without question or hesitation accustomed to grant to him. The 
convention sat until May 13, 1777, but did not adjourn v^^ithout 
adopting resolutions recording the thanks of the people to 
George Clinton for his faithful services as delegate to the Con- 
tinental Congress and to the colony of New York and to the 
State. 

The Constitution, among other things, provided for a Gov- 
ernor as the Chief Executive of the State and for a Lieutenant 
Governor, who should discharge the duties of Governor in his 
absence. Among all the competent patriots of those days, and 
there were many, the choice of the people, it seems, was not 
difficult, nor was the affection and the confidence of the people 
uncertain, for from among them all, and without the nomination 
of any political convention, George Clinton was chosen both, 
first Governor, and first Lieutenant Governor, as though they 
wanted him and him only. Clinton had again and again before 
this been made to know the esteem of the people. As we have 
said, he was elected to the Thirtieth and Thirty-first General 



George Clinton 31 

Assemblies of the colony ; to the convention that appointed dele- 
gates to the Continental Congress, and he was elected a delegate 
to that Continental Congress, and voted for the Declaration of 
Independence. He was elected a member of that Provincial 
Congress of New York which met at White Plains in July, 1776, 
received news of the Declaration of Independence, and which 
caused it to be read and ratified it, and then changed its own 
name from the Provincial Congress of New York to " the Conven- 
tion of Representatives of the State of New York." That was the 
same convention that was called upon to frame the first Consti- 
tution of the State of New York, and now, under that Constitu- 
tion, Clinton had been elected Chief Magistrate of the new State. 
It is interesting in these times to read what was said and v/ritten 
in those times by some, concerning this man, who occupied so 
large a place in the hearts of the people. Judge Jcnes, the Tory 
historian, already mentioned in this paper, wrote of him : " He 
"lived at Kingston, paid his address to and married a pretty 
"Dutch girl, Miss Tappan, daughter of an eminent, substantial 
** burgher of that Corporation. This match was the foundation 
" to all his after-greatness. His wife had a brother, a Chris- 
" topher Tappan, one of the Trustees of and Clerk to that corpo- 
" ration, a young fellow of influence and of fortune, and well re- 
"spected at Kingston. In the Dutch towns of the Province of 
" New York (Kingston is entirely so) the inhabitants are all re- 
" lated. Cousins in the fifteenth degree are looked upon as 
*' nearly related as cousins germain are in an English town. 
*' The Tappan family, in consequence of this kind of consan- 
"guinity, was related to almost the whole town. Clinton, in 
" right of his marriage, of course became also related. Clinton 
'* had art, cunning, and a good share of understanding. He was 
" a rigid, true Presbyterian, and had a good deal of hypocrisy. 
"He made the most of his connection. The Congress of 1774 
" ordered committees appointed in every city, county, town and 
"district to see that their resolutions were carried into execu- 
" tion, with full power and authority to punish any person who 
" should disobey them. Clinton was elected Chairman of the 
"Ulster County Committee, and of that of the corporation of 
" Kingston. Clinton was now in full power, and despotic as the 
" King in France and as cruel and arbitrary as the Grand Turk. 



32 George Clinton 

" He now condemned, imprisoned, and punished loyalists most 
"unmercifully. They were by his orders tarred and feathered, 
" carted, fined, whipped and banished, and in short every kind 
"of cruelty, death not excepted, was practiced by this emissary 
"of rebellion. "1 This was the verdict of a Tory against a pa- 
triot, honored in war, honored in peace, and honored in history. 
Its statements do not pass even with much salt. At most it 
amuses us. 

But some things were said, even by those on his own side 
against Clinton. General Schuyler, whom Bancroft says owed 
his place to his social position and not to any military talent, 
owned that Clinton was virtuous and loved his country, yet 
when he was elected Governor, foolishly, for an American, wrote 
of him, " His family and connections do not entitle him to so dis- 
tinguished a pre-eminence." ^ How foolish a man this Schuyler 
was ! The aid of Vermont was needed and the co-operation of 
all New England was necessary ; yet Schuyler gave leave for 
half the New England militia to go home at once and the rest to 
follow in three weeks, and then called upon Washington to sup- 
ply their places by troops from south of the Hudson River, say- 
ing that one southern soldier was worth two from New Eng- 
land. ^ We may well wonder if some of the same mistaken 
measures of the value of a New England or a Yankee soldier 
was not possessed by others of several generations nearer to us. 

But when Washington heard that Clinton had been elected 
Governor of the State of New York, he wrote to the Committee 
of Safety, " His character will make him peculiarly useful at 
" the head of your State." 

Clinton elected Governor, it was with the greatest difficulty 
that he could be induced personally to leave the field and camp 
and his military command in the Highlands and proceed for a 
few days to Kingston and take the oath of office. Message after 
message was sent to him, and messenger after messenger went 
for him before he responded. Pierre Van Cortlandt for the 
Council wrote him of his election as Governor and also as Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, and asked him to come with all convenient 
speed and take the oath of office. Clinton replied, writing from 

I. Jones' History of N. Y., Vol. 2, p. 326. 2. Bancroft's History of U. S., 
Vol, 5, p. 580. 3. Idem, p. 381. 



George Clinton 33 

Fort Montgomery, that if he was left to his own inclinations he 
would decline both offices, but concjeiving himself not at liberty 
to refuse his services to whatever office called by the suffrages of 
the public, he would repair to Kingston to take the oath as soon 
as the safety of the post would permit ; that he thought his elec- 
tion as Governor left the office of Lieutenant-Governor vacant 
and a resignation unnecessary ; but lest there might be a differ- 
ence of opinion he resigned that office ; that he expected an at- 
tack by the enemy on his post, which required his steady atten- 
tion there until their intentions were certainly known. 

To General Putnam he also wrote that he had been sum- 
moned by the Committee of Safety to give attendance on the 
making of the Government, but till the designs of the enemy 
were more certainly known, and he had Washington's leave, he 
could not think of leaving his post. 

He wrote to Washington that he had received a second sum- 
mons to take the oath of office. 

Clinton did not take the oath of office until July 30, 1777, 
He was congratulated by many upon his assuming office. The 
Church at Kingston congratulated the State that they "had a 
" Governor who understands and therefore lives the Christian re- 
"ligion," which brought from Clinton the words, that he " re- 
lied upon Divine Providence and the prayers of fellow citizens 
put up in his behalf to render his service effectual, in promoting 
the happiness of the people, and for himself besought that it 
might please the Supreme Ruler of all events to crown them with 
great glory and success."^ 

As Governor he did not regard himself as relieved from his 
duty to obey military orders, for the next day after taking the 
oath of office as Governor, Washington wrote desiring him to 
repair to Fort Montgomery immediately if he possibly could con- 
sistent with his duties as Governor. This request he regarded 
as a command, and obeyed and prorogued the Legislature to a 
more convenient season when he could meet them. 

Although he had accepted the office and assumed the duties 
of Governor, Clinton gave more of his time and energy to his 
military command in the field and did not relieve himself, by as- 
suming civil duties, from his duties in camp and field. Wash- 
ington counted on him as a soldier. Putnam kept up communi- 



34 George Clinton 

tion with him whenever he was away from camp discharging his 
duties as Governor, keeping himself informed of where he could 
be reached, in emergencies, when conflict and battle was threat- 
ening and was expected, and wrote to and sent for Clinton, 
securing his return to the command, as though no battle on the 
Hudson could be risked without Clinton and his influence on the 
militia of New York and New England. 

We have been accustomed to hear of the war governors, those 
who were Governors of the State during the period of the Civil 
War, who however never saw the enemy and never were in a 
skirmish, much less a battle. But George Clinton was a veri- 
table War Governor, a War Governor in every sense, for while 
he was Chief Magistrate of his State he actually commanded and 
led the troops both in and out of his State and with them per- 
sonally fought the enemies of his country on the field of battle. 

What a galaxy of men were among the first Governors of 
those new States ; each State a new and independent nation. 
What a roll it was ! These were some of them : George Clinton 
was Governor of New York ; John Hancock was Governor of 
Massachusetts ; Thomas Chittenden of Vermont ; Jonathan 
Trumbull of Connecticut ; William Livingston of New Jersey ; 
Patrick Henry of Virginia ; John Rutledge of South Carolina. 

The first Legislature of the State of New York under that 
constitution of 1777, was to have met in July, but Governor 
Clinton was too busy in the field to meet them and he prorogued 
it until Sept. 9, 1777 on which day they assembled at Kingston, 
and the next day they met the Governor for the first time in the 
Court Room and he delivered to them his first message, orally, 
and it was almost wholly devoted to measures for prosecution of 
the war. He must have remained a few days only, attending to 
the demands of his office as Chief Magistrate, for we find him on 
October 4th at New Windsor, his military headquarters, in short 
communication with the front, the forts in the Highlands, and 
on the 6th of October was at the head of his command in Forts 
Clinton and Montgomery and in the very front of the fight de- 
fending these posts. 

Each of the States was in fact at this period a new and 
independent nation. We do not seem to realize in these days 
that fact. As colonies of Great Britain they were separate 



George Clinton 35 

■colonies, and often were at odds as to their boundaries, and this 
was especially so as between New York and Connecticut and be- 
tween New York and New Jersey. The sea coast front was a 
great matter to each of them and to New York, hemmed in as 
she was, it was most important and she held her own until she 
got a lion's share. All the Continental conferences and con- 
gresses that preceded the war were wholly voluntary conferences 
without other than moral power. When the independence was 
declared their power was realized only because it was accepted by 
the people. The Legislative bodies in the different colonies or 
Provinces claimed and asserted and had established each for 
itself, such power and such independent control, that each sent 
and recalled and substituted, their representatives in the Conti- 
nental Congress just as they pleased, and that body had become 
a mere creature of the Colonial or Provincial or State Legisla- 
tures. It was not until after many of the States, New York 
among the number, had fully organized a separate and independ- 
ent State government, that any sort of a bond uniting the 
colonies in war or in government was devised. In November, 
1777, the Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Conti- 
nental Congress and were recommended to the States, which were 
asked to ratify and adopt the bond. New York and several 
other States adopted at once the Articles of Confederation, but 
New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland held off and did not come 
in for from two to four years, so that until 1781 it was not an 
accepted bond for all. 

In the midst of the throes of a war on which their liberties 
depended, and to which war, union was as necessary as guns and 
men, it was that spirit of independence which could not be 
downed and was uppermost in the minds and hearts of the patri- 
ots in the separate States, that led the Legislatures to keep a 
strong hand on the Continental Congress. 

And the Articles of Confederation after the war had ended 
did not prevent the assertion of the sovereign rights of the free 
and independent States. Year after year it became more and 
more apparent that it was a mere rope of sand, and scarce more 
than a treaty to prevent conflicts between the States, and for 
mutual defence against outside foes. In fact its second section 
expressly declares, " each State retains its sovereignty, freedom 



36 George Clinton 

and independence and every power, jurisdiction and right which 
is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United 
States in Congress assembled," and the third section in the 
plainest of language declares the paper to be a mere "firm league 
of friendship." 

A common enemy in time of war was itself a mutual bond of 
union, but the war was at last over, and the relation ot the 
States to each other was such as to cause ceaseless friction, which 
the Articles of Confederation did not reach. There was no real 
union between the States. There was no executive ; no central 
government. Each State was in law and in fact just what the 
Articles recognized, a separate nation. We need not here recall 
the irritating causes of trouble which grew out of the existing 
conditions. 

A remedy was demanded and a convention was called of 
delegates representing all the States, but it was expressly stated 
that the only object and their only authority was to frame and 
propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation. * George 
Clinton was then Governor of the State of New York. We do 
not doubt, but if he had not been Governor, he would have been 
called to that public service as a delegate to that convention. 
The fact that he was Governor imposed upon him duties that 
forbade his absence from the State on such a service. The con- 
vention met in Philadelphia, May 14, 1787, and set about its 
work. It became apparent that no amendment of the Articles 
of Confederation would furnish the remedy desired, and al- 
though not delegated or called or authorized to any such 
purpose, they abandoned the purpose and authority of the 
convention, and assumed without any authority whatever to 
frame the document we call the Constitution of the United 
States, an instrument concerning which it has been said our 
fathers wrote better than they knew. Yet even that document 
at first had faults and required radical amendments, to secure its 
acceptance by the States. It contained no bill of rights. It 
wholly omitted those words contained in the Articles of Confed- 

I. In his speech in the convention which framed the Constitution of the 
United States, Mr. Lansing, a delegate from New York, so declared and in- 
stanced the credentials of the delegates as testimony of the fact, and that New 
York would never have concurred in sending delegates if she had supposed 
otherwise. Documentary History of the Constitution of the United States^ 
vol. 3, p. 129. 



George Clinton 37 

eration limiting the powers of Congress and reserving to the 
States the powers not granted to Congress. It contained no 
reservations of any rights whatever to the States. 

When the Constitution came down to the Legislature of New 
York for adoption or ratification, George Clinton opposed it and 
sought to make the act of New York a conditional acceptance. 
His opposition has been often criticised and condemned, and un- 
justly. 

It is always difficult to get a complete view of all the sur- 
roundings that influence action, and it is entirely unfair to judge 
of the men of those days, unless we get a comprehensive view of 
the environment that existed, and the schooling in which they 
had been trained. Many of our fellow-citizens have been taught 
to look upon any statement of what is called the doctrine of 
States rights even as of those days, as only another sort of cop- 
perheadism, as a form of treason and a most horrible and de- 
testable and dangerous manifestation of a terrible political 
heresy. A study of the history of our country easily serves to 
show that such an opinion comes of a most lamentable lack of 
knowledge and want of acquaintance with our history, and ignor- 
ance concerning the underlying principles of our government. 

Recall, if you will, the story of our forefathers, and the 
school in which they were educated, and the experiences which 
wrought in them the iron characters from which we have prof- 
ited. They came across the seas bringing with them a purpose 
of local self-government, and left behind them, and hated by 
them too, the strong central government which had restrained 
the swelling in the heart for, and any active manifestations of any 
form of, what we now call, Anglo-Saxon Liberty. Was it strange 
that the other extreme at once developed in this new country, 
separated so far, by the almost trackless seas from the land, then 
almost an absolutism, which they had left behind. The towns 
in Connecticut and almost generally, in New England, erected 
each its independency. They clung with the severest tenacity to 
the charters they had obtained. The distances of those days 
were almost insuperable obstacles to the withdrawal of those 
<;hartered privileges. The attempts that were made to with- 
draw them, only induced the Colonies to cling to them with the 
greater tenacity and determination not to lose them. Popular 



38 George Clinton 

sovereignty grew strong in such a soil and environment. When 
larger colonies were chartered, and it was sought to withdraw 
the earlier charters, and to aggregate into larger communities 
the territory and the smaller colonial governments, they refused 
to give up their charters and resisted the new order of things. 
We recall the Gov. Andros war, and the story of the Charter 
Oak, as two only of the many instances of resistance to that early 
form of centralization. The influence of New Engand spread to 
the other colonies and the principle which manifested itself in 
the opposition, or hesitancy, not to use stronger terms, of the 
patriots who did not fall over each other in a race to be foremost 
in the cheerful acceptance of the proposed Constitution of the 
United States, is to be laid to account, not of any lack of en- 
thusiastic and patriotic devotion to country, but to education in 
adversity and in trial in the founder period, which came to our 
forefathers in resisting centralization, so often attempted to be 
forced upon them by the powers from which they had fled 
across the seas. 

A convention was elected in New York to consider and act 
upon the proposed Constitution of the United States, and to this 
convention George Clinton was elected and became its Presi- 
dent. He and his fellows had a right as they did, to look at the 
Constitution on its merits, as having what were in reality serious, 
but remediable, defects, and had a right also to look at and 
criticize it, as the volunteered work of a convention chosen to do 
an entirely different thing, and not at all to frame that Consti- 
tution. He did not, however, counsel the rejection of the work 
as that which the convention was neither authorized nor invited 
to do, but he did propose that it should be accepted condition- 
ally, the condition being its amendment in certain particulars, 
among others, the insertion of the bill of rights, and the restor- 
ation of the limitation on the powers of Congress and of the 
reservation to the States of all the powers not granted in the 
instrument. These were in the Articles of Confederation and 
they were not rightly omitted from the Constitution, and they 
were not light conditions nor were they immaterial. To give 
unlimited powers to Congress was to take from the States all 
sovereignty whatever. To reserve to the States all powers not 
granted to Congress was to continue to the people of the States 



George Clinton 39 

full and unlimited sovereignty, as to all powers not enumerated, 
and further it was only to continue the same reservation patri- 
otic men had inserted in the Articles of Confederation ; and the 
catalogue of those surrendered for the general good, being speci- 
fied, and being few, were easy to be read, though their compre- 
hensiveness, as we have since learned, was marvelous. 

It will be wholly aside from truth to claim that George 
Clinton was beaten in this fight and it would be most ungener- 
ous to claim that he compromised. The result in the end was 
so near that for which he strove that when he and those he led 
agreed to a ratification of the Constitution, not on a condition 
that it should be amended, but a ratification with a statement of 
how it was to be understood and interpreted, and with a recom- 
mendation that it should be so amended, and which amendments 
with others soon followed, we may well put aside all criticism of 
Clinton for any so-called opposition or hesitancy in the matter. 
Let it be remembered that the only test vote in that convention, 
before the final vote, showed the party of Clinton to be largely 
in the majority, and without a considerable number of that party 
the small majority necessary could not have been obtained in 
favor of ratification. George Clinton, let it be remembered, was 
the President of the Convention. On the final vote all the 
delegates from Ulster County, save Clinton alone, voted solid 
against the ratification of the Constitution, He is not recorded 
as voting on the question. It is not possible at this time to say, 
whether in those times it was the custom for the presiding 
officer to vote at all, save when the convention was evenly 
divided. It certainly can never be laid to the charge of Clinton 
that he was lacking in moral courage. He would have dared to 
vote. He did not shirk any official duty. He most certainly 
would have voted with his colleagues from Ulster if he was of 
the same opinion with them, and felt at liberty as presiding 
officer to vote at all, except by a casting vote. How he actually 
felt can be best evidenced by his own words. In his address or 
message to the legislature the following December, he said of 
the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the United 
States already ratified : " A declaration of rights, with certain ex- 
" planations, are inserted in order to remove doubtful construc- 
" tions, and to guard against undue and improper administra- 
" tion, and that it was assented to in the express confidence that 



4© George Clinton 

*' the exercise of different powers would be suspended until it 
" (the constitution) should undergo a revision by a general con- 
^' vention of the States, * * * * nothing short 
" of the fullest confidence of obtaining such revision could 
" have prevailed upon a sufficient number to have ratified it 
*' without stipulating for previous amendments." 

In the haste of some, the more to glorify illustrious and great 
men, already become human idols, it has often been said that we 
owe to the eloquence of Alexander Hamilton the ratification by 
New York of the Constitution of the United States. I am dis- 
posed to believe that it was rather to the eloquence of events, 
than to the eloquence of words, that we are indebted for that 
result. We all know that the constitution was to be of force 
when nine of the States had ratified it. New York and Virginia 
had long discussions in their conventions and meanwhile the 
action was being taken in other States. The fight waxed warm 
in New York about the provisions which were in the Articles of 
Confederation and were not in the Constitution. News came 
suddenly and unexpectedly to the convention that New Hamp- 
shire had acted and had, June 21, 1788, ratified the Constitution. ^ 
Virginia ratified it on the 25th of June, but that fact was not 
known in New York until long after the action of New Hamp- 
shire had had its effect. It was on the 25th of June and long 
before the action of Virginia was known in New York that 
Chancellor Livingston rose in his place, and with the dignity 
that became the great lawyer and jurist, the highest judicial 
officer of the State, called attention of the convention to the fact 
that New Hampshire was the ninth State that had thus acted; 
that the constitution was no longer a question, but was a fact ; 
that the confederation of the States was hence dissolved, and 
that a nation had been born, and that New York, the Empire 
State, with all its possibillities, was no part of that nation ; that 
New York now stood practically outside the league of States, 
with that league arrayed against it ; to the danger to the future 
of the State and its people impending from such a position.* It 
needed not any oratory of words to face the consideration of the 
new momentous dilemma which Livingston stated in a question, 
whether New York should place itself out of the Union ? 

I. Curtis Constitutional History of the U. S., Vol. i,p. 677. 2. Idem, p. 677. 



George Clinton 41 

The convention, July 26, 1788, by a slender majority, 
instead of ratifying the Constitution on condition of amend- 
ment, was thus forced to ratify it with a recommendation of 
amendments, which were proposed, and in which recommenda- 
tion five others — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, 
North Carolina and South Carolina — joined. The patriotism of 
those men, and of George Clinton with them, was fully justified, 
as will be at once seen. In the first Congress eleven amend- 
ments of the Constitution were proposed to the States. Of 
these amendments ten were ratified by the requisite number of 
States and became a part of the Constitution, and this was so 
soon done that an eminent historian has written that they "were 
" so soon added after its adoption that they may fairly be con- 
"sidered part of the original instrument."^ These amendments 
embraced, practically, the bill of rights, the limitation of the 
powers of Congress and the reservation to the States of all the 
powers not delegated to Congress. They were the principles 
for which George Clinton had fought. The adoption of them so 
quickly and in the short way provided for in the Constitution 
itself, made unnecessary a convention of the States for a general 
revision, and satisfied the utmost demand of the most bitter op- 
position. 

Think for a moment how those very amendments secure our 
liberties ! What were they, and what did they secure ? Relig- 
ious liberty, freedom of speech and of the press, the right of the 
people peaceably to assemble and petition for redress of griev- 
ances, the right of the people to bear arms, and the States each 
to have its own militia, no quartering in times of peace of sol- 
diers on the people, security of the people, their persons, houses 
and effects from unreasonable search, no warrant to arrest the 
citizen without probable cause, and then only supported by oath 
or affirmation, the accusation of capital and infamous crime only 
by a Grand Jury, no one to be put in jeopardy twice for same 
crime, no one to be compelled to be a witness against himself or 
to be deprived of life, liberty or property save by due process of 
law, private property to be taken only for the public and only in 
compensation, public trials and by impartial juries and in the 
district where the crime was committed, the accused to be in- 

I. Johnson's American Politics, p. 16. 



42 George Clinton 

formed of the crime charged and to be confronted with the 
witnesses, and to have witness and counsel for himself, the gen- 
eral right of trial by jury, excessive bail not to be required, and 
the reservation to the people and to the States of the powers 
not delegated to the United States. These were the rights se- 
cured to us by the amendments. Would any one of us to-day 
sacrifice any one of them ? Was the fight of George Clinton to 
secure them a worthless fight ? To him and to those who stood 
by him, we stand to-day indebted for those words which secure 
to us our liberties as American citizens. 

With the ratification of the Constitution of the United States 
by eleven of the thirteen States, a new era opened. Though in 
some respects the States remained sovereign, yet in other re- 
spects the United States had become a nation, and had taken 
her place among the nations of the earth. How far beyond the 
conception of any of those who had part in that movement 
has been its development to the postion of a world power which 
it occupies. 

Clinton was re-elected Governor of New York from 1777 to 
1795, six consecutive terms of three years each, and again in 
1801 for a further term of three years, and he served the State as 
its Chief Magistrate in all for twenty-one years, a record never 
equaled in this country. Three times he was chosen without an 
opponent. In 1783 he was elected over General Schuyler, in 
1789 over Robert Yates, in 1792 over John Jay, and in 1801 over 
General Stephen Rensselaer — each certainly a most formidable 
opponent, but in each count the result showed the hold he had 
upon the respect and confidence of the people of this great 
State. 

It is not our purpose to call to mind at this time, more than 
has already been done, his great and patriotic services to the 
State. Let it be added, however, that in a very large sense it is 
to him belongs the honor of having conceived the idea of the 
great inland artificial waterways that have been so much to the 
commerce of this State, and during his administration as Gov- 
ernor, in 1792, the first legislative act to that end was passed, 
being the act for subscription and issue of stock for the West- 
ern and Northern Inland Navigation Company. In his early 
boyhood campaigns as a young soldier Clinton had acquired 



George Clinton 43 

personal knowledge of the feasability of connecting Lake Cham- 
plain and the Hudson River, and the Hudson River with Lake 
Ontario by the Mohawk River and Lake Oneida. These water- 
ways he as Governor actually proposed. It was he who con- 
ceived the idea of those mighty waterways. It was left to his 
nephew, DeVVitt Clinton, to complete and enlarge the concep- 
tion in the Erie Canal, which connected the Hudson, not with 
Lake Ontario, but still further west with Lake Erie. 

It was in the incumbency of Clinton as Governor that a far- 
seeing interest in public education gave birth to its supervi- 
sion by the State in the establishment of the University of the 
State of New York, with its Board of Regents of the University- 
The act was passed May i, 1794 and George Clinton became the 
first of the Chancellors of the University, in a line which to this 
time has continued, and has contained the names of those who 
for learning and high character have reflected honor and credit 
on the State. 

It remains to call brief attention to the national repute of 
Clinton. He became as we have seen the intimate friend of 
Washington, and as such became well known outside of his own 
State. His determined fight for amendment to the Constitution 
of the United States won him strong regard and respect among 
the people of other States. The Constitution as it existed pro- 
vided that each elector should vote for two candidates for Presi- 
dent and not for any for Vice-President. General Washington was 
unanimously elected President, receiving the vote of every Elec- 
tor, but for the office of President Clinton received votes in the 
Electoral Colleges in 1789, in 1792 and in 1796 and again in 1804. 
In 1800 no electoral votes were cast for him, but in 1804 the 
manner of voting by the Electors having been changed, Clinton 
was elected Vice-President of the United States, having also 6 
votes for President, and in 1808 he was again elected to the same 
office. 

It is difficult at this distance of time to measure the influence 
of Clinton in the national affairs of that period. During his first 
term as Vice-President, the Presidential office was filled by Jeffer- 
son, that colossal figure in American politics, and in his second 
term James Madison was President. Those were not by any 
means quiet times. The trouble was brewing that resulted in the 
Second War of Independence, the War of 1812. The threat as 



44 George Clinton 

understood and published by Adams, was made, which was in fact 
a threat of nullification and of secession of New England.* It 
was a trouble fomented by the Federalists, the very party which 
had been at the framing of the Constitution most strongly de- 
termined on a strong central government. 

To be Vice-President, seems in our history to have almost al- 
ways been fatal to the future of the unlucky man. True, John 
Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Van Buren, each of whom 
was chosen Vice-President, afterwards reached the Presidental 
office by election to it, but they three are the only ones out of the 
whole list of twenty-five, and with those three names the list has 
ended, and of those five who reached it because of succession on 
the death of the President during the term, not one of them has 
ever been elected President. Had George Clinton lived longer, 
his great and wide popularity might have added his name to the 
list of Presidents, but he died in office as Vice-President, in the 
Spring of the last year of his second term and before the candid- 
ates were nominated for the next succeeding election. To be 
Vice-President also seems to be the eclipse for a time of great 
personal usefulness. The office seems to separate the incumbent 
from all active participation in the great events as they pass, for 
he is perforce a calm observer only, having no hand in them, 
in fact, relegated to comparative obscurity. A mere pre- 
siding officer of the Senate with no other duties, powers or 
privileges, he is relegated to a life of uninteresting routine, 
and as the years go by it becomes more so. 

Clinton died at Washington, April 20, 1812. It was before 
the time of railroads or the telegraph. Transportation was slow 
and wearisome and by stage-coach. Had railroads then existed 
no doubt his remains would have been brought to his native 
State, the State he loved and served so well and which had so ap- 
preciated and honored him, and would have rested in the soil of 
New York. As it was he was buried in the old Congressional 
Cemetery at Washington at the end of a long line of graves in 
which repose all that was mortal of the great and worthy and 
honored men who there found a last resting place. 

I. The fact was denied, but it remains that it was asserted by John Quincy 
Adams, and it is inconceivable that he should have manufactured a lie. The 
violence of the times was such that it was charged that Adams had no ground 
for the charge and that he was paid for what he did by a foreign mission. 



George Clinton 45 

He was a unique character. His official history is by far the 
most honorable of any of the sons of New York. He was most 
certainly a man of the people. He was a brave, resourceful and 
persistent soldier, who was most modest, depreciating his own 
qualities, most considerate of others and supremely trusted by 
the great commander. He was a patriot of the truest type, and 
every act of his sprang from the sincere love of his country. He 
was a statesman far seeing, conscientious and courageous. A 
leader and not a follower. As an official, it can be said 
of him, in the language of the days now passing, he esteemed 
every place in which the people placed him, a public trust. 

New York may well remain proud of the memory of her first 
Gov^ernor. 






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